Responsible and sustainable raincoats
Flotte is the brand of responsible and colorful raincoats created by Lyly and Mickaël in 2020. These two rain lovers found the most responsible material through some thorough R&D, and developed a business strategy to offer their products at just the right price. Today, they continue to grow, and they plan to open a flagship store by the end of 2023. Their ambitions are great, as is their need for financing. Consequently, to support them in their growth, they turned to Silvr.
The origin story
Lyly has a degree in marketing and works in the world of fashion and cosmetics. Mickaël, meanwhile, climbed all the rungs of the ladder in a textile manufacturing chain, and ended up developing his own collection. In 2020, they began looking for the perfect raincoat, one that was robust, ethical and affordable. When they couldn't find it, they decided to launch their own brand, Flotte. Since then, they "live happily, they live with the rain ".
Ethical raincoats that also protect you from the gloom.
No more dull and overpriced raincoats! They channeled their inner child to develop raincoats with a design that practically explodes with the colors of the rainbow, because “it always brightens up after the rain”.
Their broad range of raincoats provides lasting protection from “the rain, which falls for 170 days a year on average,” he reminds us. Flotte's commitment is primarily to products made from entirely recycled materials. The current overconsumption of plastic makes it an almost inexhaustible material that must be used. Flotte’s two co-founders understood this completely. By recovering certified plastic (rPET) from manufacturers, they’re able to produce everything they need to create Amelot, Belleville or Pompidou, the names of some of their striking collections.
An omnichannel business with a high WCR
Grand ambitions online and in wholesale
A significant amount of R&D was needed to ecologically source and develop the ideal material to provide protection from the rain. After that, the adventure began, as they develop their omnichannel brand. Online, they brought in 40% of their revenue via:
- Their website,
- A marketplace,
- And social selling.
In doing so, they have taken both a B2B and Direct-to-Consumer approach. Physically, they can be found in Parisian pop-up stores and currently in the Printemps Haussmann department store. They have also opened a new pop-up store in Anglet – an obvious choice, given the rainy weather on the Basque coast. Mickaël also tells us thata first flagship store is due to open in Paris before the end of 2023. Flotte is also adopting a wholesale strategy by going through a vast network of retailers to increase its physical visibility, in brick-and-mortar stores.
An increase in visibility, as well as in WCR
In case you didn’t see or recognize them, Lyly and Mickaël appeared on the M6 show Qui veut être mon associé ? to present their DNVB. From there, their already growing reputation went through the roof! Consequently, it made sense to make the most of this exposure to expand their community of rain lovers while dealing with an ever-increasing WCR. All this means spending money on inventory and marketing, of course.
Scaling up and freeing up cash flow with Silvr
Maintaining your independence and scaling up, without getting into too much debt
They therefore had to activate new financing levers. Mickaël came across Silvr and its CEO, Nima Karimi, on the podcast Le Panier. ”It helped me understand what Silvr was doing – we immediately felt that it was made for companies like ours”. He was immediately impressed.
“To expand our community of rain lovers and deal with a growing WCR, we turned to Silvr, which is ideal for young DNVBs like ours”
Mickaël, Flotte co-founder
By choosing Silvr as a financing partner, the range of possibilities has widened because Flotte can now scale up without financial headaches.
“Silvr is an obvious way of scaling up without over-leveraging or diluting your capital. ”
Mickaël, Flotte co-founder
With Silvr, Flotte was able to increase its marketing budget fourfold
After connecting to Flotte’s accounts, Silvr analyzed its performance and allocated an initial funding amount of €20k. This sum enabled Flotte to invest heavily in their acquisition campaigns and in particular retargeting campaigns. But in order to gain customers and scale up, they needed to go even further. Courtesy of Silvr's help with these considerable expenses, Flotte no longer has to manage this 20 to 30% of the marketing budget. This part of the cash flow has been freed up for:
- Managing their inventory intelligently following an influx of orders,
- Developing their catalog,
- Increasing their digital presence through new campaigns,
- Increasing the size of their talent pool.
Flotte’s growth led to it increasing its marketing budget fourfold in 2021. Silvr then offered it a second round of financing in February 2022, this time for €25k.
“We multiplied our acquisition budget fourfold to match our strong growth. ”
Mickaël, Flotte co-founder
Flotte chooses Silvr as long-term growth partner
Flotte now has 11 employees, and is expected to grow its talent team by at least ⅓ by the end of 2022. In their growth strategy, Flotte has no plans of stopping there with Silvr. Mickaël recognizes that, with Flotte being a young company, Silvr is an obvious growth partner to implement the scalability he is looking for.
Scale by reducing your cash flow with Silvr : connect here.
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